


Pineapple

by pied_r_piper



Series: It Takes A Village [4]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure
Genre: Complete, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28970301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pied_r_piper/pseuds/pied_r_piper
Summary: Yamato hires his father a personal chef. [Oneshot]
Relationships: Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida & Tachikawa Mimi
Series: It Takes A Village [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1325441
Kudos: 7





	Pineapple

**Author's Note:**

> We could be the kind of peace  
> In the eye of the storm
> 
> "Pineapple Skies" by Miguel

Yamato arrives to his father's apartment to find his brother crouched behind the kitchen, long legs bent just low enough for his head to peer up over the counter and into the dining room. Takeru's still wearing his overcoat, and at first Yamato thinks he's dropped something there, bent as he is behind the cabinets. So he leans over him, tucking his tie into the breast pocket of his starched white button-up. "I thought you were on your way out—hey!" but he just smacks his knee again, shushing his pained grunt, and grabs his elbow to yank him down next to him.

"Look," Takeru whispers, forceful, as the elder shakes him off, scowling.

"What's gotten into—oh." He freezes. "Is that a bowl?"

"And a glass," he adds, excited, "and look—look over there—,"

"A napkin," murmurs Yamato.

Takeru looks at him, his smile wider than it has been in months. "I told you."

He watches as their father, with patience, swirls some pasta around his fork using the bowl of his spoon, his attention focused on the baseball game playing loudly on the living room television set. "We all have good days."

"You saw him," the younger counters, voice buoyant in its whisper. "He didn't reuse the same bowl for every meal, but got a clean dish, each time. And here he is a whole week later, with a full place set and everything. She has him eating at the table. Even—even Mom never got him to do that."

Yamato lets him catch his breath. "All right. Looks like this is a yes then."

"He likes her, too," his brother adds.

"I already said yes, Takeru."

"I'm the yes that matters."

Adult as they are, the siblings flinch in unison. They stand up together, meek and admonished. Takeru speaks first, moving around the corner into the dining room, while Yamato stays in the kitchen, arms folded tight over his chest. "We were just saying that we like her, too."

Hiroaki scrapes down the sauce from the bottom of the pasta bowl. "She's funny. Talks nonstop."

"And all the meals look healthy."

Yamato snorts at his brother's glass-half-full outlook, casting a dubious look at the creamy butter sauce his father is now trying to lick from the bowl. They both ignore him.

"She knows what I like."

Takeru flashes a triumphant smile at his brother, who takes the hint. "Right," Yamato says, relaxing his posture. "Caloric questionability aside, I'll let her know we'd like to keep her on."

"Done it," says Hiroaki. He sets the dish down on the table, utensils resting on the crumpled napkin. Wiping his mouth with the side of his thumb that he then proceeds to rub clean on his pants, he pushes his chair back, and Takeru braces, holding his reach back when their father pauses in just barely visible discomfort. "I told you," he continues after catching the sheet of protest that flickers across his eldest son's face, "it's my yes that matters. And now you two don't need to visit every month to check on me. I'll be fine. You can get on with your life now."

This, Yamato knows, as the one who lives closest, is meant for him. He even knows Hiroaki means it to be observational, matter-of-fact, a practical decision. But to Yamato, it just stings. The bite is out before he can stop it. "Yeah, well, it's my yes that pays f—,"

"Going out?" Takeru interrupts, voice loud. Hiroaki finishes pulling on the jacket that had been hanging on the back of his chair, and stands straighter, though the red to his cheeks that comes with each aching step doesn't pass by either of his children.

He ignores it, or barrels through it. "Poker night at Susumu's. Want to come?"

Takeru breaks into a grin. "I've got a few hours yet before my train anyway. But not to play," he assures his brother, who's looking even more cross now. "I don't play. Often."

"He's very good," Hiroaki counters, puffed with pride. "Can't tell one way or another."

"Taichi taught me."

"To lie?" accuses Yamato, frustrated.

"You're just mad because you have the worst poker face possible. It makes Daisuke's almost passable."

"And who's cleaning that?" demands Yamato, refusing to play into their teasing. He waves an agitated hand at the dining table.

Neither look particularly bothered.

"See you later, Yamato."

"'Night, son. Lock up behind you, when you leave."

He waits until they're both gone, and the chatter he'd never really been good at subsides outside the apartment, to open. He stares just a moment longer at the empty dishes left on the table, and presses the heel of a hand to his forehead, pushing back his long hair slowly. Then he gets to work, falling into the routine of his schooldays, first turning the television off, and piling the dishes and utensils together, hesitating only a second when he remembers the last time he'd used this faint blue chinaware, or whose they were. That his father had taken to using the fine dishware, and every day thus far, if Takeru were to be believed, didn't comfort Yamato the way it might have only months earlier. Now, he thinks it an impersonal notion, leaving these of all things to him the way she did. Hiroaki didn't use dishware, least of all fine. He didn't eat every meal, punctually or otherwise. What had his mother been thinking?

The door opens again, but he doesn't look up from the table, wiping the darkened look from his eyes to fix a more casual expression in front of his brother, but it isn't Takeru who greets him, and his exhausted irritation returns.

"Oh! You're still here!" laughs Mimi, holding a grocery tote in one hand and the doorknob with the other. She's bundled into a tea green peacoat, her phone tucked between her shoulder and her left ear, and she babbles on, "Oh, no, sweetie, not you. Listen, I have to go, someone's here, but I promise, when I get home, we will find him together, okay? I am sure he's fine. Positive. Three thousand percent. Okay. Baby, I—listen, can you give the phone to—?" She gasps as the phone clatters to the floor from her shoulder, and she barely catches the tote that slips from her hand from the sudden sound. She's laughing, even as Yamato steps forward on instinct. "Oh, it's fine, it's fine," she tells him, and proceeds to kick her phone out of the way, bracing both hands under the heavy tote now. "I go through so many phones."

His mutter is dry without meaning to be. "Probably because you kick them?"

"Hm?" She's not listening, bustling into the kitchen. The tote's hoisted onto the counter and her purse along with it. Yamato picks up the mobile, checking it over for damage. "I hope you don't mind, but Hiroaki already gave me the spare key, and I was just leaving the mall when I had the best idea for this pineapple meringue to try making tomorrow, so I ran back to the market and then ran back here to make sure I had time to marinate the—oh, my God, where's my phone? Did I leave it at the—?" and her shrieks subside when he hands the phone back. Her sigh is as sincere in its relief as her memory is indefensible. "Our toddler lost his bunny bear," Mimi explains without his asking. "It's been two days, and he's absolutely devastated. Tears everywhere. Haven't the heart to tell him I was trying to clean it and ended up losing an eye in the washing machine. Did you know you're not supposed to put bunny bears in the wash?" Mimi frantically continues unpacking the tote. "Hiroaki says Natsuko did the same thing to you when you were—,"

"Sorry," he interrupts, firm, "I just need to get by you."

Mimi sees the dirty dishware he brought into the kitchen behind her, and immediately abandons the groceries. "Let me, let me," she insists over his protests, grabbing the bowl from him with more force than he'd anticipated. He watches, tense, as the dishes clatter against the sink when she sets them down, rough and energetic, slapping the faucet on. The water sprays everywhere until she adjusts the flow, still talking. "Anyway, so after I'd set the table for your father, I was telling him about the busted eye and he told me there was a shop at the mall that sold toy parts, even antique ones, so I thought I'd better see if there might be a match there, because, as you know, bunny bear is very quite old. It actually belonged to my mo—,"

"Mimi," he speaks up, alarmed with the way she scrubs a soapy sponge over the rim of the bowl, pressing hard enough for her knuckles to turn white.

"—ther-in-law, so obviously, I can't tell Taichi about the wash disaster, or she'll find out what I've done, too. So the only chance I really have to get to this toy store is during the hours I'm here with Hiroaki. Except I can't exactly just, like, not show up or miss an hour or anything, but your father—gosh," she sucks her teeth, dazed in a stalling daydream, "your father is just the sweetest, most open client I have ever had, you know? I mean, of course you know, he's your father—anyway, so he told me I was fine to go a bit early today if I wanted to check the store, and who was I to say—,"

"Mimi."

"—no, so I went. Long story short, I found a good eye, except in a different color. How good is a toddler's memory? I think I could try to pass off that bunny bear always had purple eyes with him, but the trick will be Yu—,"

The fork slips from her hand under the water, striking the side of the bowl with a shark crack.

"Mimi—," he breathes, and the hoarseness of his voice makes her stop. Yamato lifts his hand, "Those are my mother's dishes. Okay?" The hand stretches then falls, shaking, to coarse through his hair. "Those are not yours. Those are hers. So can you please, just—," and he stops, hearing his own anger.

Mimi steps back from the sink, leaving the water running. She allows a long moment to pass before her gaze leaves his. It's even longer before she speaks again. "Natsuko was a journalist, right?"

Yamato only nods, fixated on the dull, gaping weight on his chest.

"Hiroaki says she was very good. That they met working on a story." She rinses off the bowl, glass, spoon, and fork, and begins to dry them now with the clean dishtowel hanging from the hook next to the kitchen wall clock. "The first and last time they worked together, he says, but I think it's really nice that they came to be so close."

The weight shifts to a sickening swell in his throat.

"Not everyone could do that, find a way to do that," Mimi continues, mostly to herself now. "I'd have a hard time with it, that's for sure." She glances at him, wavering with regret. Yamato doesn't react, so she goes on, more carefully. "Anyway, I just think it's nice they stayed friends after the divorce."

"They didn't," Yamato says. "They weren't. Not for a long time."

She doesn't respond to the cold edge of his firm refusal, and instead, finished with the dishes, rests her palms on the counter of the kitchen. "Maybe not."

He wants to say something sharp in return, but only stands there.

A short beat, and then she's busying herself with the grocery tote, and still, still talking.

"You know, lately, I've been thinking a lot about something my mother told me once, that I was my father's answer to her question, 'How much do you love me?'" He leans his shoulder into the hallway wall, as far back as he can go from her then. If she notices, she doesn't say so. She finishes the unpacking, and begins to fold the cloth tote into a sensible, neat rectangle. Her voice is softer now, murmuring, "I've been thinking about that a lot more recently. Like I told you and Takeru, I've not been doing this long. But I really enjoy it. I meet so many people, so many families. Every client is different, of course, and so is the time with each of them. But you know what isn't?" She looks at him, and smiles. "Their answer to that question. It's always the same. And it's always the best thing I've ever heard, every time. Because what else can we give each other, but each other?"

His head is turned from her, staring into the dimmed light of his father's apartment, so he doesn't see her approach until her hand pulls his face back towards her. She's not smiling anymore, but her gaze is still so warm, and open he falls, breaking.

"I miss my mother, Mimi," he mumbles into her palm.

She nods. "Then let's give each other, each other. Okay?"

He covers her hand to his face with his own.

"Good." She lets go and pats his chest as her hand draws back, pulling the tie from the pocket and smoothing it flat. "And don't you worry about Hiroaki here. We'll keep him plenty busy. Susumu's committed to that poker group now, even roped my father into it, bless him. And you know I would have put a stop to that if I'd had a chance, but bunny bear's facelift is taking precedent. Worst mother ever, aren't I?"

Yamato rolls his head back, the smile slow, but there all the same. "Do you have it with you?"

"The eye?" She steps back, digging into every pocket of her coat, surprising him with how many she had on her. With glee, she produces a hideously purple, bug-eyed glass ball. "What do you think? I can totally pull that off, right?"

"The idea being that it can't be pulled off, technically, even by the wash," he suggests. "Let me try. I'm pretty sure he never tossed the darning kit I used to keep here for my school uniforms."

She gasps, delighted. "Oh, I forgot how homely you are!"

The adjective throws him. "That's not—,"

She's not listening, already plotting. "Bunny bear's in the trunk of my car, outside. I'll just grab it and we can operate."

Yamato laughs, "You've just been holding him hostage in the trunk?"

Mimi scoffs, already pulling on her shoes. "If anything, bunny bear's a they, and what're they going to do, tattle me out?" She straightens, suspicious. "You're not going to tattle me out, are you?"

"Not if you change your pineapple meringue idea."

"What's wrong with pineapple meringue?"

"Well, first of all, my dad's allergic to pineapple—,"

"Allergic to pineapples." She scoffs again, and he leaves the door unlocked behind them. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"Mimi, you're not really making me feel confident about leaving him with you."

"Too bad. You're both stuck with us now." She links an arm with his as they take the stairs to the parking lot. "And isn't that the best thing you've ever heard?"


End file.
